


Can you see it?

by Sergeant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Thrawn - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Gen, art gallery, stereograms, written in hurry and with no beta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 18:37:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11697534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sergeant/pseuds/Sergeant
Summary: Thrawn is going through an art gallery and finds a piece which he doesn't understand. Thankfully he has his aide to explain it to him.





	Can you see it?

Eli walked through the long hallways of the famous Art Gallery on Coruscant. Sometimes he wanted to stop and look at some paintings, but didn’t, because he had an important objective – to find Thrawn.

When he talked to him on the comlink, his superior only told him which floor he was on and that proved like a terribly vague piece of information.

When Eli entered yet another section of the gallery and found a guidepost, he sighed and thought about putting a tracking device into Thrawn’s rank plaque.

After few glances to the closest doors and not seeing the Chiss the man tried a different approach. He looked at the guidepost and ruled out few hallways by guessing that Thrawn wasn’t interested in them in the moment.

Currently, their missions were mostly revolving around dealing with humans, so Eli thought he could focus on that at first.

…

Thankfully his guess was right and finding Thrawn took him only another ten minutes wandering around.

The Chiss of course stood very close to some painting and appeared to be studying it.

Eli walked carefully to him and stopped few steps away.

“Sir? I am sorry to interrupt, but we need to go.”

Thrawn stepped away from the painting with a slight frown. Eli knew that meant Thrawn was seriously angry and hoped his mood wouldn’t last. Besides, he spent hours in the gallery, he shouldn’t be surprised it was time to go!

“I can try to find a digital version of it…” Eli waved to the piece as he wanted to appease Thrawn and finally looked at it himself.

...

 

...

“That won’t be necessary.” Thrawn replied shortly.

_Yeah, he really is pissed._ Eli thought but the picture caught his attention.

“What was in this one?” Eli asked with interest.

“Pardon me?”

“The hidden object.” Eli smiled. “We had lots of fun creating these when we were kids.”

Thrawn looked at it again with such intensity that if the legends about Chiss were true, the picture would burst into flames.

After few moments he crossed his arms but still didn’t say anything.

“Sir?” Eli prompted.

“Why don’t you look yourself, lieutenant?” Thrawn gestured towards the picture.

“It is not possible to see it from an angle, you always have to stand right in front of it.” Eli explained.

“Oh, of course, I did not realize that.” Thrawn said and stepped away.

Eli positioned himself so he was at eye level with the centre of the picture.

Thrawn silently walked to the side and watched where Eli was looking.

“Got it.” Eli said triumphantly. “This one is quite simple, really, if I had known they are putting these on display I could’ve sent them some of mine. I could’ve been famous.”

Eli looked at Thrawn but the Chiss didn’t seem amused.

“Sir?”

“Interesting.” Thrawn’s tone suggested it was anything but interesting. “So what do you think about the object on it?”

“A simple design playing with the depth.” Eli shrugged. “I don’t really know, sir. Art is not exactly my area of expertise.”

They stood there in silence. Thrawn still contemplated the picture and Eli was waiting politely for Thrawn comment. He always had something to say about art.

“Sir? So what does this one say about humans?” Eli asked with interest.

Thrawn thought about Eli’s question for a moment, then lowered his eyes in embarrassment.

“I’m afraid I do not know.”

Eli looked at him in surprise. “Oh. Wait, you… don’t see it, do you?” He asked silently in attempt not to hurt Thrawn’s pride even more. _So that’s why he’s angry._

Thrawn didn’t say anything.

“I’ll show you. Once you see it, you’ll be able to easily see any of those.” Eli said enthusiastically.

“First you need to stand like I did, to look exactly in the centre.”

Eli waited as the Chiss moved closer sceptically.

“Now. This might sound weird, but try it, okay? Imagine there is no picture in front of you and try to look through it in the same way you would stare into distance.”

There was more frowning from Thrawn as he couldn’t do it.

“Let’s try it differently.” Eli said eventually and looked around. Thankfully they were alone, so they could experiment a bit.

“Stand really close to it so you can’t focus on it.”

Thrawn looked at Eli with a raised eyebrow.

“Trust me, it will work.” Eli encouraged him. “Look, like this.”

Eli stood to the picture and stared through it. Then he slowly stepped back while keeping his eyes unfocused.

Thrawn watched him attentively and then stood at the same place where Eli started.

“Take your time. Is the pattern blurred now?”

“Yes, it is.”

“So try to slowly move away, but keep your eyes unfocused.”

Thrawn followed the instruction and at one point blinked in surprise. “I think I saw something!” He exclaimed. “But it’s gone now.”

“That’s good. Try it again, but slower.” Eli said slowly with some tension in his voice. Thrawn was so close, but there was still a chance he won’t be able to see the hidden image. Some people just couldn’t.

At least Thrawn looked intrigued and not angry anymore.

The Chiss was slowly leaning back when he suddenly gasped. “I see it! There are three circles.”

Eli cheered. It was always heartwarming to show someone how to see these and watch them finally see.

Thrawn smiled and finally looked at the picture with understatement.

“Uhm… sir? I’m really sorry to say that again, but now we _really_ need to go.”

**Author's Note:**

> This one is really short, sorry. But I had this idea and thought it might be fun to make Thrawn not understand stereograms. I can imagine him staring at it furiously for hours xD  
> Can you see the hidden objects in stereograms? I think they're really cool (I actually created these thanks to Microsoft Paint and a website where you upload images and it creates stereograms from it: http://www.easystereogrambuilder.com/3d-stereogram-maker.aspx)


End file.
